


and in the light just streams

by steklir (SilentStars)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bitter Harvest, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Drawing, Episode: s03e06 Bitter Harvest, F/F, Missing Scene, Nightmares, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-24 02:53:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6138865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentStars/pseuds/steklir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You don’t know what to do with her, this child of the sky who takes up your space, who fills the emptiness with quiet breaths and flaxen hair and starlight simmering under the lining of her skin. This leader, this warrior, this <em>softness</em> that gets into your throat and into your lungs and into the tips of your toes.</p><p> <i>Set the night before the sketching scene in Bitter Harvest.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	and in the light just streams

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place the night before the opening scene of Bitter Harvest.

It’s only the smallest of noises outside your room but adrenaline is already preparing your muscles for attack and you slay the distance between semi-consciousness and battlefield-alert in a single breath. You’re on your feet before your eyes are fully open and you tighten your fingers around the knife you lie curled around in sleep like a security blanket.  Sleep is a relative term for you, anyway; you can’t remember the last time you let go of your duties long enough to dream anything more than half-dreams of blood and death and endless sword maneuver drills.

You wonder what it was like to sleep as a babe in the crook of your mother’s arm. You wonder whether you were sung lullabies, if one day you might finally learn the words to one. You wonder how old children are when the lullabies stop, whether they know when they’re rocked to sleep for the last time. You wonder if you’ll ever learn to rock yourself to sleep.

Your knife is raised and your feet don’t feel the cold of the concrete floor as you creep toward the noise, ears bristling and your mind racing through possibilities and defensive tactics for each. There’s a knock at the door and your body doesn’t startle. It’s trained too well.

“ _Heda! Heda,_ _yu stomba raun_?” It’s Amil and you inhale a long breath at the lack of urgency in his voice.

(Of course you’re awake. You’re always awake.)

“ _Min you op._ ” Despite your barked permission, you’re still at the door first and swing it open before the handle is turned.

Amil and a newer guard you don’t know well yet stand in the arches outside your doorway and it takes you a split second longer than it should to recognize the body held between them because she’s unnaturally still. One of her arms is twisted so far behind her back that she’s forced to bend forward to reduce the strain on her shoulders. For the first time tonight, your breath catches.

“Clarke.”

_“Osir don hon em op raun—”_

You silence your guards with a single glance and Amil clears his throat, glancing down at the blonde in his grip and switching to English.

“We found her on the balcony next to your room, Heda. She was climbing between them.”

Your blood runs cold and your lungs still scramble for air but you blink and then force your breathing into a steady rhythm again, banishing thoughts of heights and mossy stones and free falls from your mind’s eye, at least while your guards are in sight.

Clarke continues to say nothing and her head remains lowered in a forced bow. You taste metal and something in your chest snaps; you clench your fists as if it could restring the bow of your heart.

“Release her,” you order and step aside. After a crinkling of the forehead from the guards, they unhand their prisoner and she stumbles past the threshold of your door. You take a deep breath, glancing to Clarke as she straightens and glares at the two men before crossing her arms.

There’s a moment when you want to run, when you want to tell the sentries to drag your wild weakness back to her own room and throw away the key, a moment when all you want to do is dive under your bedding and hide from the fire in her eyes. An eternity when you consider the logistics of immolation.

Instead you thank the guards for their conscientiousness and close the door, turning around to fight your fight head-on as you’ve done your whole life. There is no other option. Not for Heda. Fear is just as great a weakness as love and some days you think they’re the same thing.

Clarke sets her jaw and meets your eye with defiance.

You know you need to grasp for control wherever you can find it with your Achilles’ heel and you wait for her to speak, taking in her appearance through your peripheral vision while keeping your gaze fixed firmly on hers. Her legs are naked and her arms are naked and she’s barefoot beneath her shorts and tunic, all skinned knees and knotted hair. You become aware of two facts simultaneously. One, that you’re in an equal state of undress. Two, that she’s still such a _child_ and that you’re spitting mad about it. Your tableau of slippery stones and crumpled bodies returns to the stage and you are dangerous.

You stop waiting for her to speak.

“Is your death wish so strong that you would scale the walls of a starscraper, Clarke?” Your words are clipped and half-growl and you don’t care. There are spots in your vision and your heart is pounding in a way it rarely does anymore, not even in the heat of battle.

“I was fine,” she bites back and you prepare yourself for the fight, stepping forward with all the automaticity of a warrior intimidating her foe in battle. “There’s a railing the whole way across; you should really re-think your security, _Heda._ ”

The corner of her mouth quirks up though and somewhere in your white hot rage you perceive the levity in her tone. She’s defending, not attacking, and it takes you a moment to reorient yourself and then to curse yourself for how slow your reflexes become around her, how she sets you off-balance even in the rare times she’s not trying.

Clarke shifts her weight and uncrosses her arms. “Starscraper?” she queries with a lighthearted squint when it’s clear you’re speechless and it’s been so long since you’ve seen playfulness directed toward you that you stiffen, your defenses doubling.

“This tower: the word translates as something that scrapes the stars. Due to its height.” You grip your knife harder as you speak, glance to where your sword rests on the table beside the bed. Your head knows you have nothing to fear but your chest feels open and defenseless.

She laughs. She _laughs._ “I think Old Earth called them skyscrapers. I like starscraper better though. More poetic.”

“What are you doing here, Clarke?”

She sighs, folding her arms again. “I thought you might be awake.”

(You’re always awake. You’re _always_ awake.)

“I also have a door. The wood resounds quite nicely when one’s knuckles are rapped against it.”

“ _Hos op_ ,” she says, rolling her eyes. Some might consider them to be sparkling and you take a step back, shift your gaze to just over her shoulder.

Your grasp on the knife doesn’t slacken and Clarke notices. She cocks her head to the side. “I didn’t come to kill you. If that’s what you’re thinking.”

“No.” She raises an eyebrow at your denial. “I can plainly see you have no place for weapons on your person.” Your words hang in the air for a beat and the blood vessels in your cheeks disobey their Heda’s frantic orders for ceasefire. Your mouth snaps closed in disbelief. You’d blame her presence for your mouth’s lack of control but you’re pretty sure there’s no one to blame but your own heart.

Clarke’s jaw drops, just a fraction, and you follow her eyes as they freefall down to your feet and slowly climb their way back to your face. She says nothing though, only clearing her throat and perching herself on the wooden paneling at the end of your bed. From your angle the rounded portions of the backboard frame her face in a perfect heart, hair streaming over her face and haloed by the light of the moon -- you take a hasty step to the left and the effect shatters. You wish for your armor, for your breastplate, at least.

“What do you want, Clarke?” It’s been several days since you declared a complete reversal of the central tenet of your leadership and spared the Skaikru from bloody retaliation so she knows by now it’s not a trick or tactic. You’re fairly certain she’s not here in the early hours of dawn to discuss that anyway but any other things with feathers have been long shot down and you’re at a loss for her presence.

Her shoulders slump and she fidgets with the carvings, chasing the curves with a finger like it’s a map. Now that the moonlight isn’t directly on her face, you can see the dark rings under her eyes. “I couldn’t stand being alone for another second,” she finally admits behind gritted teeth, gaze locked on her hand’s wanderlust.

You don’t reply for a moment. What _can_ you reply? That you know that feeling, the sensation of the silence and the emptiness taking physical form and forcing itself down your throat, into your lungs, into the tips of your toes. That you know hollowness can be so full that it can be gagging, that the quiet can deafen, that the stillness can flatten you in an instant. That it does, over and over and over until you’re more empty space than human being. 

 You nod, eventually.

She grants you a half-smile and you slip the knife back under the pillow. She doesn’t move from her perch and after a pause you lower yourself to the very furthest edge of the bed. Her back is to you until all at once it’s not. She enthrones herself on your right hand side and you both stare forward, your backs stiff and your hands in your laps.

The room is heavy with silence but it’s not the usual kind. Not the kind that usually weaves through your room late at night like ribbons around a maypole, twisted and entangled until the children and the strings are one chaotic entity. Not the kind that’s retreating into the shadows, the kind you almost want to call back with a plea. What are you without your darkness, without your most loyal companion? What are you with someone at your side instead of always at your back?

“Do you dream?”

You shake your head.

(You never sleep. You _never_ sleep.)

There’s no point in returning the question, much as you itch to ask, much as she itches for you to ask.

You don’t ask. You know.

You wonder if she’d ever had nightmares up in her castle in the sky, if she’s whispered their shapes to a warm mother or a father who smelled of sleep and safety. You wonder how comfort might sound, how it might feel to have palms pressed to your cheek and arms wrapped around your chest. How it might feel to believe that the nightmares aren’t real, how it might feel to have someone tell you that you’re safe even when the dreams are no less imaginary than the body heat you’re leeching out of their bones. You wonder what stories children are told to distract them from their nighttime terrors, what combination of words could slay the demons that skulk in the borderlands between wake and sleep.

_in the beginning there was the darkness. in the beginning there was the light. in the beginning the light rose up to meet the dark and together they ruled over all the land. in the beginning there was the night and there was the day and they were allied. they were indomitable._

_in another beginning, in a far-away kingdom a million miles from here, light conquered the darkness. in this far-away kingdom, darkness held no dominion. in this far-away kingdom, the sun never set._

_In the beginning there were children who grew to become adults when they swallowed enough darkness._

_In the far-away kingdom, they are always children._

(You don’t dream. You _can’t_.)

“I can’t imagine you sleeping, actually,” Clarke murmurs, stretching her hand back to stroke a fur. The hairs bristle under her gentle touch and she raises them on end before smoothing them back flat.

“I sleep,” you lie, closing your eyes as if you’re illustrating when really your eyes need respite from the assault of her light.

You don’t know what to do with her, this child of the sky who takes up your space, who fills the emptiness with quiet breaths and flaxen hair and starlight simmering under the lining of her skin. This leader, this warrior, this _softness_ that gets into your throat and into your lungs and into the tips of your toes.

“I don’t believe you,” she retorts and you fight a smile.

“ _No one_ could survive without rest,” you tell her. The bedframe vibrates with movement and you open your eyes to find her twisted on one curled knee, her face turned toward yours and close enough that you can almost imagine the sensation of breath on your neck.

“Rest, no. Sleep… We can keep going a long time without sleep.” She sounds like she knows and she probably does. “I almost slept tonight.” Her words are casual but her tone is one of confession, like she needs atonement for her lapse in strength.

You know. You say nothing.

She sighs and picks at imaginary threads. “Sometimes I think it’d be better if I _could_ dream. Like maybe if I could, maybe I could make sense out of the chaos.” When you maintain your silence, she continues and you know this is something she needs to talk about. She’s not as used to processing her emotions alone as you are and you listen without interjection. It’s the least you can do. Maybe it’s the most, too. “I used to dream about stories and wishes and fantastic events, all bright colors and people and faces.  All I get are emotions, now. Fear and guilt. And pain. I’m not sure if they’re even dreams. I don’t know if I’m awake or if I’m asleep.”

You swallow and look at your hands. “Yes. I know.”

“Does it ever go away? Do the dreams ever come back?” Her syllables are broken into a thousand pieces like she doesn’t want to know the answer or maybe like she already does,

“Yes. But you will wish they did not.”

The arrangement of blood vessels and spinal nerves in a severed neck and piles of stiffened bodies and the smell of burnt human flesh. The gasping of last breaths and your enemy’s raspy pleas for life and the knowledge of how much pressure will press a sword through a beating heart. The viscosity of blood and the taste of iron behind your teeth. The cacophony of metal on metal on metal and the nausea of unnatural stillness. Fields of charred skeletons and wasted souls.

Clarke is quiet for a long while. Your eyes start to adjust to the inkiness of the nighttime sky while you wait and the stars become brighter through the open window, more defined against their dark prison. You watch the abyss of space in silence for what feels like hours and then she slides her hand toward yours, still clenched in your lap. Her palm covers your knuckles and you suck in a breath.

It’s nothing less than pain, this sensation of skin on skin, this feeling of alliance against the coalition of darkness, and you grit your teeth to stop yourself from flinching under her touch.

The pain settles in your chest and you manage to control your breathing again, the muscles in your stomach contracting so hard she must feel their movement reverberating where your hands meet. She says nothing and you sit together, two girls transformed into one beast.

“I used to draw my dreams, you know,” she says and you’re not entirely sure whether she’s speaking to you or to herself. “The good ones. Because they faded so quickly and then they were gone. Almost-somethings that would never be. But if I made them real, if I gave them life, if only on paper and if only in black and white, maybe—” She trails off and turns her head away.

Your throat thickens and you can only nod.  Her hand remains on top of yours and your heart remains beating. Somehow it _always_ keeps beating, the resilient traitor.

“Clarke—”

“What if we pretend?” she interrupts and you welcome it. You had nothing past her name.

“Pretend what?”

“Pretend that we can sleep. Pretend that we still dream about fairies and astronauts and swimming in lakes made of glitter and fireflies.”

The pain in your chest is replaced with something else and you don’t care to dwell on it. It’s warm though. Less heavy. “Lakes made of glitter?” you ask with wrinkled nose.  “It sounds impractical for bathing, Clarke.”

You mock because the alternative is visions of her floating on her back while gold streams down from the clouds, catches in her eyelashes and gathers in the dip of her throat. The fireflies dance around her and the moonlight sets her skin aglow. She floats and somehow it’s you who is free.

“Come on, Lexa,” she laughs, nudging you with her shoulder and elongating your name in a way that you commit to memory. “What did you dream about when you were a kid?”

(You were never a child. You were never a _child._ )

You make something up, something to keep the smile on her face, something that might get her to lean into you again, something that will distract you from all these desires you shouldn’t have in the first place.

“Jumping off waterfalls,” you finally say and you don’t know where it comes from. “Hitting the water at such an angle that my body would sluice right through and leave behind not a single ripple.”

“Seriously?”

You smile and the sides of your lips crack. “What did you dream of, _Klark kom Skaikru_? I picture you dreaming of horses. Every night.”

Clarke’s eyes widen and then she elbows you, shifting on her leg so that she’s more fully facing you. “Not _that_ often. But I did have a recurring dream involving a horse. She was white and she ate carrots out of my hand. I now realize she was also about the size of a deer but I can’t be blamed for that.”

“No,” you agree, “I suppose not.”

“Once I dreamed that I’d been made queen of the whole world. I had an orb and scepter and everything. And my word was _law_. When I woke up I remember being so devastated it wasn’t real. That was the first time I drew my dream.”

 “Did you paint yourself as queen?” you ask with an indulgent smile, already imagining a white-blonde child’s self-portraiture, dressed in robes and wearing a golden crown. You consider what Clarke must have been like as a child, consider if you might have been friends in another life. Part of you suspects there isn’t a universe where you could ever be simple friends, that there isn’t a universe where your lives aren’t twisted and knotted until you strangle together.

But she shakes her head and her smile turns sad. “Nah. I drew all the flowers I’d commanded to bloom up from the metal floors of the space station. The space station _was_ my whole world.” She wets her lips. “My dad taped my scribbles to the wall and told me I’d already made my dream come true. That I could make any dream come true if I tried hard enough.”

“I once dreamed that I could fly,” you find yourself blurting out when Clarke’s smile drops completely and the mood thickens. As the words leave your mouth you realize you’re telling the truth. It must have been eons ago, long before real robes and symbolic crowns and words that send warriors off to die in your name. You don’t remember anything but the swoop of your stomach and the spread of your arms.

“Me too. Honestly, I don’t know how any amount of effort could have made that one come true,” she admits laughingly and then bites her lip in thought. “I guess it’s all in the interpretation. Maybe one day we’ll capture that _feeling_ of flying. Of letting go.” She falls quiet and you press down the sensation of your heart fluttering in your chest like it’s grown wings with every ounce of self-control you possess.

“I had a few dreams where I was weightless in space, turning somersaults over and over,” she continues after several beats like she’d never stopped and you turn your hand around in hers so that you’re palm to palm.

“Running so fast that my feet stopped touching the ground,” you add.

“Leaping so high I didn’t come down.”

“Being able to breathe underwater and staying down there for days.”

“An invisibility cloak.”

“Hiding under my furs in the morning when the morning horn sounded.”

“I command life. Not death.”

At some point you know neither of you are naming childhood dreams anymore. Maybe you never had been. But the fairytales combined with the weight of her hand in yours, of the outside of her thigh pressed against yours, of the breath in her lungs entwining with yours and floating up to the stars— you haven’t felt this light in so long, in _so long_.

You’re so light that you can't hold your head up any longer and she follows you down to the pillows, her blonde hair tangling with your brown, the white of her eyelids and the black of her lashes, the cool of the night and the embers of your still-threaded fingers.

The void has been your only bedfellow for longer than you can remember but you’ve never managed to forget the taste of whatever the opposite of hollowness is.

“I am two. I am two years old and the whole world unfurls before me,” you say.

(You know. You _know_ what the opposite of hollowness is.)  
(Some days you wish you didn’t.)

Turning onto her side, she lifts your joined hands to rest beneath her cheek and closes her eyes. It’s the only part of your bodies that are touching. It’s enough.

“My hands are my own,” you whisper.  
“My voice is my own,” you whisper.  
“My heart is my own,” you whisper.

She’s asleep and you watch her dreams play out from outside her eyelids.

 “You are my own,” you don’t whisper.

But your mouth tests the weight of the words.

_in a far-away kingdom a million miles from here, light conquered the darkness_

_but there’s a secret so few people know._

_that battle for the light, that fight_ oh _so many years ago?_ _it wasn’t a battle at all._

_there were no trumpets and no war paint, no innocent lives lost to psalmodies of valor and valiance. no politics or strategy. no betrayal. no hymns and no prayers and no white flags of surrender._

_light conquered darkness not by slaying it but by drawing it nearer, by brightening it gradually, by lightening its burden day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, until_ _the time came when darkness could lie to itself no longer._

_in a far-away kingdom, darkness re-named itself light._

(You sleep. _You_ _sleep_.)

 

**Author's Note:**

> For the record, this was supposed to be a fluffy blanket-fort fic :-)
> 
> Come flail with me about Clarke and Lexa on tumblr - I'm [steklir](https://steklir.tumblr.com) over there.


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